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Harte took an instinctive step back at the forcefulness of her tone. Something terrible must have happened at Nibsy’s place for her to be so closed off and distant. She’d faced something, done something, and now she needed this. Danger or not.

Seshat started to wail as Esta rolled up her sleeve, slipped the cuff from her arm, and set it along the dark circle she’d drawn on the ground. A little farther along the line, she placed the ring.

When Harte didn’t immediately move, impatience flashed in Esta’s expression. “I need the others.”

“What if the ritual kills you?” he asked softly.

“It won’t,” she said, lifting her chin. Confident as she ever was.

“How can you know that?” Harte asked.

“I made the old man tell me everything when I took the key from him,” she said.

“You can’t believe anything Nibsy tells you.” Harte shook his head. “You know that.”

“I believe this.” She pointed to the page of the Book. “It’s all here. See… when you put the page together, these symbols aren’t some secret code. They’re just an older version of Greek. Professor Lachlan taught me to read this years ago.” Her mouth formed strange syllables the likes of which Harte had never heard before. “To catch the serpent with the hand of the philosopher: With power willingly given, mercury ignites. Elements unite. The serpent catches its tail, severs time, consumes. Transforms power to power’s like… It’s all right here.”

None of that was clear enough for him. “Esta—” But before he could say anything else, Seshat wailed and thrashed, causing him to nearly collapse with the effort of holding her back.

“Look at you,” Esta said. “We need to get that demon out of you and back into the Book.”

“Not if it means losing you.” He grimaced against Seshat again. “Nibsy nearly killed you before, trying to do this same ritual.”

“I wasn’t willing then, but I am now.” Her jaw was set, and her eyes flashed. “My affinity, willingly given, will ignite the Aether and unify the artifacts. With them, we can control the demon goddess and use her power. Only the goddess can touch the piece of pure magic in the Ars Arcana, which means we need to get her out of you and back into the Book where she belongs. Where she can be controlled. I can do this. I know I can.”

Lies, Seshat screamed. You cannot allow her to do this. The only way to unite the stones is through sacrifice. Total and complete sacrifice of her affinity. She will die, willing or no, and whoever possesses the Book will possess my power as well.

So that’s it, he thought. If Seshat was fighting so hard against this, it meant that the ritual would work. You expect me to believe you care about her at all?

I’m not your enemy, Seshat said. I never was.…

But Harte was already shoving her down, back into the recesses of his soul.

“I need the artifacts,” Esta said. She’d already placed the Book on the ground in the center of the circle.

His hands were shaking as he took out the crown, the necklace, and the dagger. In the dim lighting of the station, the pieces looked dull, almost ordinary, but he could feel their power thickening the air. He hadn’t seen the five of them all in one place since he’d stolen them from the Order’s Mysterium. Then he’d had the same foreboding. Now Seshat railed from somewhere deep, deep inside him, but he ignored her protests. If she didn’t want this ritual to happen, there had to be a reason.

He stepped into the circle, but he didn’t hand over the other three artifacts, not yet. “I can’t lose you to this. We need to be sure. This isn’t worth dying for.”

A soft breath escaped from her lips. A sign that was as much exhaustion as frustration. “I know, Harte. I love you, too.”

The shock of hearing those words from her bolted through him. How many times had he wondered, had he wanted to say those words only for them to stick in his throat? And now, after all they’d been through, she was giving them to him here? Just when she was about to take an incalculable risk? “You…” He couldn’t seem to choke it out.

“Love you.” The words still sounded stiff, like the creaking of a gate that needed oiling or the cracking of a lock that rusted shut.

He shook his head, feeling an unexpected dread. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. “You don’t have to say that.”

“But I do.” She gave him a small, brittle smile. “Now, if you could hand me the satchel? I’ll need the other stones.”

He was still too shocked, too overwhelmed to move. “Esta, I— Don’t. Please.” Why wouldn’t she look at him? “Don’t you dare say your good-byes.”

She blinked as though surprised by his assumption. “No. Not a good-bye. I just thought—” Her jaw went tight, and her expression became unreadable once again. “This will work,” she said, cutting him off before he could say anything more. “It will be fine. Everything is going to turn out the way it’s supposed to.” She looked at him, her golden eyes pleading. “You do trust me, don’t you?”

The sharpness in her voice threw him off, but he pulled himself together when she glared at him, and he had the sense again that something was wrong. That there was something she wasn’t telling him. “Of course…” It was Seshat he didn’t trust. Nibsy. Himself.

“This is going to work,” she repeated, but he wasn’t sure that she was talking to him anymore. She held out her hands and looked at him, clearly waiting for the artifacts. “I need you to believe in me.” There was a spark of impatience in her eyes, an urgency that reminded him that something must have happened while she was away. There was a flinty determination in her expression he hadn’t seen for months. “I thought you loved me?”

He did. After all they’d been through, how could she not know that he loved her? Which meant that, whatever misgivings he might have, he couldn’t take the choice from her. It meant that he had to trust her. Afraid to get too close, he placed the satchel on the ground at her feet. Her eyes lit as she picked it up.